Starting from the beginning.

At least, of my day.
There aren't very many photos of me getting ready, mostly because we shut the door to the room I was in. I'm not sure I'm missing out on any photos because of it, my dress doesn't really have an attractive shape to it when it's hung up - it looks like a lifeless drooping cloth.

On the other hand, the door was wide open when Mr. GB was getting ready (last minute, I might add) and there was a lot of confusion as to why his tie was so freakin' long.. or maybe he's just short. It's a pathetic sight when you have 5 people in a room all unable to tie a single tie.

I'll just tell you, Mr. GB cannot tie a tie to save his life. He didn't even try.


Here is where I tie it and realize the thing is just longer than long.


Then my friend, and the person who performed the ceremony, Gordon came along to try. As a side note, we chose him to perform our ceremony for three reasons: he's a close friend of mine from college, he is very tall and looks official, he cleans up real nice in a suit.


Midway through the process, he realized he can only tie it when it's around his own neck, which isn't as helpful as you would think. Our photographer, at this point, has decided he has way too many photos of this and left. The tie tying process was supposed to be a cute few minutes, but it ended up being a sad sight of several well dressed monkeys scratching their heads.


We eventually got it on there, somehow - possibly involving a parent and some glue, or a pair of scissors? I'm really actually glad we have photos of this rather than of me sitting in a chair having my hair done. The photos of us showing the world we're idiots it pretty much how I want to remember our day.



That and I'm officially calling this my "getting ready" photo.

Because you can't get married without part of a balanced breakfast and more really stupid facial expressions.

Floral Ignorance, Part 2.

I already admitted I know nothing about flowers and I threw my hands up when our floral designer asked me what I wanted. I literally had no clue what I wanted her to decorate the flower girl's wagon or our chuppah with... I just nodded and looked worried. So when we decided to pick a floral designer, we went with someone who really knew what they were talking about and made us feel like we would get exactly what we wanted..... without even knowing what we wanted was called. She really understood that it wasn't about color or a type of flower, but really about accenting the mood that we wanted to set for our wedding.

Nancy Liu Chin will blow you away when you meet her, she is just such a bubbly, enthusiastic person that you can't help feel she's truly excited to be a part of your day! Both Mr. GB and I felt run over with floral excitement as she energetically tossed out ideas and sketches, ooing and aahing over the possibilities in her mind. We felt confident that we had chosen the perfect person to do our flowers. Someone who knew a whole lot more than we did and was confident just going with it because our open mouthed retardation was really of no help to her.

Our bouquets:


thanks for the second photo, tiff!

Mr. GB had two lapel pins actually, this one and one that she provided should the first wilt. It stood up well in the weather and the second one ended up rotted in the back of our fridge, only to be found brown and nasty behind some equally old parmesan shavings.


I asked Nancy to design 6 wrist corsages to recognize the girls who helped make everything come together.


Our ring pillow was a handmade nest filled with flowers, it was absolutely adorable! I wish I had some better photos of it, I took one when I got home, but it's a little janky. And of course, the adorable flower girl wagon - it turned out better than anticipated and the whole bottom was soft moss!!


The same flowers in the ring nest were used for pomanders to line the aisles. We reused these as cute flower decorations for the lounge area later!


Nancy also provided all the orchids we used to decorate our manzanita branches on the tables!


I think the thing that shocked me the most were the flowers she put together for our "chuppah". Not only was she extremely helpful on information on how to construct one, since she has experience and Mr. GB and I were completely lost as to where we should start, she told us how to attach the correct hooks for floral arrangements! We gave her absolutely no direction with this except that we wanted something that felt the same as the rest of the wedding, very natural. I didn't actually have a chance to see the "chuppah" until I walked down the aisle, so I think seeing this for the first time almost made my eyes water with happiness. How gorgeous is this?!



I think the thing that really felt like we weren't just client #183201 was when she called us from her cell phone at the flower mart to tell us what she had found ranunculus out of season, one of my favorites, and was going to rework the bouquet to work them in for me. She listed all the orchids currently available in front of her, waited for us to google image search what she was suggesting (because we're that pathetic) and bought it with us on the phone. Her phone even died and she called us back from a vendor's booth!


I can't say enough about Nancy and the work she did for us. I suppose this is a vendor review with a raving "OMG She's teh awesome!" rating!

Nancy Lui Chin Designs
Phone: 415.647.2012

It's not a chuppah... ok, so it kinda is.

"He's not Jewish"
-takes one look at Mr. GB's photo- "No, he's Jewish, what's his last name?"
"xxxxberg"
"He's Jewish"
"everyone thinks he is, but he's not!"
-looks at the ceremony marker- "He's Jewish."

Despite all the things that would make Mr. GB very apparently Jewish, he is not. And while he doesn't mind people making the mistake, he thought it would only further convince people that he was a liar when they saw his ceremony marker... that looks kinda like a chuppah. It is 4 poles with fabric held between them, but it's just a nice marker for the ceremony! We wanted some natural that offered some covering, and this seemed like the perfect thing to just erect on the farm that didn't seem completely out of place. We wanted everything to be natural and low-key, and this was no exception.

Mr. GB did a LOT for the wedding, much more than I expected him to. Not only did he go to every vendor meeting with me, look at magazines with me, be the phone contact for all our vendors, drove me to appointments here and there and even went to paper source alone many times, AND do every single craft project with me... he also built our "chuppah" himself in our garage.

Yes, I ordered Mr. GB some birch poles, some lace (thank you to Jen for sewing the trim on), and told him to go the hardware store for some tools. He went out and bought everything he need, even traveling to a ton of stores looking for galzanized metal buckets since I was very specific about what I wanted them to be placed in, and spent a few days locked in the garage to make our poles stand straight!!




The morning of the wedding, he, his brother, his father and my BIL all went out and built it on the ceremony lawn. It was a bit windy, so they had to use some ribbon to make it a little more stable, but all in all, I think it went well! He is standing in the background speaking to our DOC in these photos, but I swear he was helping... or at least, so he says. Either way, liar or not, he gets credit for building it in the garage first.

Cover the buckets with some moss and we're done! Not shabby, eh?



I could give you a million reasons why I love Mr. GB, like how when we were on an international flight from japan he spilled a drink on himself within 1 hour of take off and just laughed at his luck... he got diaper rash, I told him he would. He still laughed, just with a slight twinge of discomfort. But the fact that he not only let me work towards my ideal of a wedding (knowing full well I'm an anal perfectionist) but took every step with me, never denied me a seven hour "talk" about my choice in ribbons, brainstormed ideas with me, and supported me being a bee despite the fact that he knew somehow the world would end up knowing about his case of diaper rash at the age of 23... it make him the most tolerant and wonderful person in the world. Anyone willing to put up with me and pretend he enjoys it is special, possibly short-bus special, but I'm taking what I can get.

To show him I care, I'm going to pack baby powder with me on any future long flights.

You picked a dress... right?

I did! Yes, after all the horrible things we went through, from wishy-washy dress reconsiderations to an alteration manager that made me feel like poo, I did finally get a dress and have it altered! Which dress was it? The original dress, of course!

Mmm lace...


After the ceremony and some quick photos (thank god! I'm so camera shy, I'm glad they were over in a few minutes!) they rushed me off to get dressed for the Korean ceremony. I opted to put on a sash and bustle my dress for the remainder of the day so I could frolic if I felt so inclined. I didn't, but I did do a lot of squatting. Perhaps I'm just an avid squatter, but I felt that I was often very low to the ground.


Here I am trouncing around in my dress at the meal - as you can see, Mr. GB was too busy stuffing his face to walk with me. If anyone who was at the wedding wanted to know where he was, I just want you to know that Pork + Crackling > Our Guests to Mr. GB.


I look depressed or something in the second photo, but I swear it has nothing to do with my brother-in-law, he is just the unfortunate victim of me in a not-so-happy looking pose staring down at him as if he'd done something horribly wrong. He actually did help a lot, so have photographic evidence of this.

And since I can't get away without posting at least one portrait that we took, I had to share this one - which I really feel captures us and the general feeling of the event. This is the only one I'm posting! Any reader who wasn't clicking on this post would miss out on this photo without even knowing they were missing this once in a lifetime chance to see a photo of Mrs. GB not looking purposefully idiotic.



Although I finally have photos (and am out of excuses), I don't even know where to start in what to tell everyone about my day! If there is anything you are dying to see photos of or hear about, let me know and I'll get to them one by one. Otherwise you will be subject to my out of order, totally whacked out posts that have nothing to do with what anyone cares about. Next week's post will be "Ode to my toe jam that caused me much discomfort during the ceremony" if someone doesn't help put me on the path of useful topics. And I will even photoshop some images of me and some toe-jam if it comes to it.

PS. we both wore our glasses during the ceremony, so all you 4-eyed brides, show your lens appreciation and wear them proudly down the aisle!